WSOP 2008
Omaha Stakes Rise
by Jill on 06.29.08, 7:34 pm
Nearly 100 players have already been eliminated in the $10K Pot Limit Omaha World Championship, Event #50, despite the reload chip requiring mandatory usage after Level 3. Registration topped at 381; 288 players remain in the tournament.
Scott “BigRiskky” Clements was one of the recent chip leaders in the last few levels, but his stack kept shrinking with some sick hands. In one recent example, we caught up with the action as Scott bet out 2.8K after the turn on a board of 3
3
JA. Another player moved all in and Scott called. Scott exclaimed, “Don’t tell me you have quads!” just before his opponent flipped over two threes for the nuts. Scott’s pocket aces made a boat, but nothing could catch him up on the river and he was down to about 30K.
Recent eliminations include Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond and Vanessa Selbst; Jamie “TheNew” Robbins (pictured at right) and Stu “thedonator” Paterson were also suspiciously missing from their old tables, replaced by other players. Here are some unofficial chip counts of notable players who remained in the event:
Steve “MrSmokey1″ Billirakis - 94K
Dario Minieri - 40K
Noah “Exclusive” Boeken - 36K
Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke - 34K
Eric “Rizen” Lynch - 28K
Tim “tmay420″ West - 16K
Alex Jacobs - 14K
Tom McEvoy - 14K
Tom “durrrr” Dwan - 11K
Meanwhile, the final table of Event #45, the $50K HORSE World Championship has begun after the unveiling of the Chip Reese Memorial Trophy. The house is standing-room only in the Amazon Room and spectators fill the gallery with applause after every hand. Michael DeMichele managed to win several of the last few pots and is on an upswing in the Razz rotation; Patrick Bueno has already busted in 9th place and Erick Lindgren retains his chip lead. More on this exciting conclusion as it develops!
To Reload or Not to Reload?
by Crystal on 06.29.08, 3:39 pm
The $10k World Championship of Pot-Limit Omaha got started at noon today here in the Amazon room with around 240 entrants when play began. The field has since grown to more than 320 players and registration will stay open until the end of level two. We’ve already spotted some P5ers in this smaller field including Jamie “TheNew” Robbins, Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond, Eric “EFro” Froehlich, Eric “Rizen” Lynch, Jimmy “Gobboboy” Fricke, Stu “The Donator” Patterson, and Scott “BigRiskky” Clements.
While in most of the other WSOP events this year the starting stack has been double the buy-in for the event, players begin this tournament with 10k in tournament chips plus a red reload chip (pictured left) that is good for another 10k chips whenever the player chooses to use it. Players can elect to use it right at the beginning, to make their starting stack 20k while others may wait until they need the extra chips. At the end of level three, the extra 10k will be added to any player’s stack that hasn’t already used their reload chip.
The final tables of both the $50k HORSE event #45 and the $2k NLHE event #48 will start this afternoon. The HORSE final table is fileld with big name pros including P5’s own Barry Greenstein who comes into the final table with the 3rd largest chip stack as he tries to win his 2nd bracelet this year and his 4th overall bracelet.
The $2k NLHE final table will be led by chip leader Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson who has more than 2.1 million. The final table will begin play at 3 pm where Marco hopes his amazing run in this event will lead straight to his first WSOP bracelet.
CrazyMarco, Roothlus Chip Up
by Jill on 06.28.08, 12:30 am
Players recently returned from their dinner break in the $2K No-Limit Hold’em event, ready for action. The original field of 2,317 has been reduced to 480 in the last level, condensing play to one section of the Amazon Room. The average chip stack sat at 18K.
Several PocketFivers made moves to chip up, including Marco “CrazyMarco” Johnson, who has built a fortress of chips and is near the top of the official chip counts with 73K. Adam “Roothlus” Levy (pictured at left) also made small moves to increase his stack. In one example of position play that we witnessed, Levy min-raised on the button and got two callers. After the flop, he bet out to take down the pot uncontested. As we watched, his strategy of taking down small and medium-sized pots was working - he moved up to 27K in chips.
Meanwhile, PocketFives caught up to Tristan “Cre8ive” Wade’s table as he went all in for 13K on a board of 9
K2 against one other player. His opponent, sporting an Intellipoker patch, asked him, “What? Do you have a king? A flush draw? You can’t have a flush draw!” before folding his hand. Tristan looked up and grinned as he took down the pot. Carter “ckingusc” King sat across from Tristan at the table, nursing a short stack of 10K. He accosted two PocketFives staff members in his quest to find out who Tristan was. He succeeded as Tristan finally introduced himself and crisis was averted. Settle down, boys - we’re covering you both.
Other recent drama included the elimination of Stu “thedonator” Patterson, who sat in the big blind with 7K in chips behind. He jammed all his chips in the middle and was instantly called by the small blind. When Stu flipped over A
J, he sighed and found he was behind the other player’s A-K. The board was no help and Stu made his way to the rail.
Brett “gank’ Jungblutt was recently eliminated from the $1.5K Stud Hi/Lo event in 54th place. His finish was enough to garner him $2,450. Craig “MrCasino” Gray is one of 38 players remaining in the event. When we last saw him, he was scooping a pot and increasing his chip stack to 40K.
Meanwhile, the $50K HORSE event continues on with Day 3 of play and Barry “barryg1″ Greenstein is still towards the top of the leaderboard. Several notable young players saw their bracelet dreams come to an end today including Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond, Steve Sung, and Tom “durrrr” Dwan.
A Player Makes a “FatalError”
by Crystal on 06.27.08, 8:17 pm
The bubble finally burst in event #46, the $5k NLHE six-handed event after over an hour of hand for hand play. Jonathan “FatalError” Aguiar (pictured right) called another players all in preflop with Jon holding the AJ against the all in players AK. While other player was ahead preflop, the board ran out JT9J9 giving Jon a full house and the bubble boy was sent to the rail.
All the players remaining are guaranteed at least $8,323 but they all seem to have their sights set on the $911,855 that the winner will receive.
During hand for hand play, Steven “Cornell Fiji” Ware’s stack took a big hit when he called another player’s all in with top pair and the nut flush draw versus the all in player’s set of nines. When the set held, Ware’s stack was knocked down to around 35k and had to wait out the rest of the bubble without much action. Since the bubble burst though, Ware has been on a tear, catching pocket aces, pocket queens, and pocket kings… twice. The second time Ware held kings it seemed his luck had run out as his opponent held pocket aces, but the turn brought a third king and Ware’s stack shot up to 276k. Ware is now right near the top of the chip counts along with Bertrand “ElkY” Grospellier (270k).
Also notable as a result of the bubble bursting is that player Nikolay Evdakov has now cashed eight times in this years WSOP which ties the all time record held by Michael Binger (2007), Chad Brown (2007), Phil Hellmuth (2006), Richard Tatalovich (2006), and Humberto Brenes (2006).
Event #47, the $1.5k Stud h/l event is progressing and Craig “MrCasino” Gray and Brett “Gank” Jungblut are still fighting to build their chip stacks.
Brett (pictured left) started the day short stacked and got into a big hand earlier. With 3 players in, there was heavy action, betting and raising, until 5th street when one player folded and Brett ended up all in against the other player. Brett showed down (84)48T against the other players (A3)363, Brett’s two pair behind the other players trip threes. Both players were dealt a jack on 6th street, changing nothing, and on 7th the other player peeled the 7 while Brett slowly peeled the 8 to make his full house complete and to more than double his stack.
Barry Greenstein is currently 2nd in chips in the $50k HORSE event, with Phil Ivey right behind him in 3rd. James “mig.com” Mackey and Justin Bonomo have been having a good day and has built their stacks up to more than 300k while Tom “durrrr” Dwan (120k) and Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond (54k) have lost some ground and will need to get their stacks moving in the right direction if they want to make day 4 tomorrow.
Stud Players Wanting Tang
by Crystal on 06.27.08, 4:26 pm
The players in the $1.5k Stud H/L event aren’t craving the astronaut’s orange-flavored drink, rather they’re wanting more chips like those held by chip leader Ben Tang. Tang comes into day 2 with nearly 40k in chips. Among the 117 players who will return today are Brett “Gank” Jungblut (5.3k) and Craig “MrCasino” Gray (11.5k) (pictured right) who will both need to win some hands early to build their stacks up if they want to be one of the 56 players who will cash in this event. The players will hit the felt again at 2 pm today without Brian “Devo” Devonshire and Scott “BigRiskky” Clements who both busted last night before play concluded.
Day 3 of the monumental $50k HORSE event will kick off at 3 pm today with only 67 of the original 148 players left to battle it out. Lyle Berman is the current chip leader with 507k in chips but the field is still filled with well known live pros and a few online players looking to make their mark. Among those are Justin Bonomo (384k), Tom “durrrr” Dwan (195k), Dario Mineri (50k), Barry Greenstein (473k), Phil “OMGClayAiken” Galfond (138k), and James “mig.com” Mackey (175k).